Contamination And Source Identification Of The Elemental Contents Of Soil Samples From Municipal And Medical Waste Dumpsites In Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Contamination in soil samples collected from municipal and medical waste sites was assessed by employing four indices: contamination factor (c(f)), degree of contamination (C-deg), pollution load index (PLI), and index of geoaccumulation (I-geo). The sources of soil contaminants were identified by using Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF). Iron had the highest average concentrations of 46.47 +/- 14.03 and 39.42 +/- 2.54 mu g/g in the municipal and medical waste dumpsites. C-f values were above 6 for both dumpsites, classifying the dumpsite soil as very high contamination with respect to Cr, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, and Ph. The overall C-deg and PLI values are 176.9 and 170.4 and > 5 for both dumpsite implying Very high degrees of contamination and progressive deterioration, respectively. The average I-geo values for Zn, Cd, and Ph of the two dumpsites were >3, indicating that the soil samples at both study areas were classified as highly to moderately polluted. The three identified sources resolved by PMF and their respective percentage contributions were crustal (32%), scrap metals wastes (40 %), and electronic wastes (28 %). The studied soils were moderately contaminated and this could increase depending on continual waste disposal. An urgent need for solid waste management is recommended in order to safe guard the ecosystem from detrimental impacts of waste and to reduce the human health risks arising from consumption of plants grown around the dumpsites.